Dr. Mellese Damtie
Dr. Mellese Damtie is an associate professor of law at School of Law of Addis Ababa University. He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Faculty of Science and LLB from Faculty of Law, AAU.
Dr. Paul Scholte
Dr. Paul is an ecologist, who has been leading Conservation and Natural Resource Management organizations in a development context. He has 35 years’ experience in protected area- and rangeland management, governance, rural development, and biodiversity surveys, about which he authored some 150 publications.
Dr. Mellese Damtie
Dr. Mellese Damtie is an associate professor of law at School of Law of Addis Ababa University. He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Faculty of Science and LLB from Faculty of Law, AAU. He also received his LLM from Amsterdam University, the Netherlands, and his PhD Degree from the University of Warwick, UK. Dr. Mellese Damtie has over 28 years of experience as practitioner, researcher, educator, leader and consultant. He has 15 publications in the form of books (two solo authored books), journal articles and book chapters. Moreover, he published several teaching materials on Environmental Law and other subjects and workshop proceedings. Dr. Mellese Damtie has extensive experiences at the grassroots level with local communities regarding the community ecological governance, sustainable livelihoods, ecological and organic agriculture and food sovereignty initiatives. He is also a passionate promoter and advocate of environmental protection and environmental ethics with special reference to Earth justice. He served as a trainer on over 80 occasions, on various topics such as EIA, Laws of Natural Resources and the Environment, Climate Change, Biodiversity, Wildlife, Wetlands, Agriculture and Seed Laws. Dr. Mellese also engaged in training and short course provision in the UK, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana on Earth Jurisprudence or Earth Justice, Climate Change, Biodiversity and Community Ecological Governance. Dr. Mellese is a member of the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Think Tank and currently serving as a legal advisor of the broad.
Dr. Paul Scholte
Dr. Paul is an ecologist, who has been leading Conservation and Natural Resource Management organizations in a development context. He has 35 years’ experience in protected area- and rangeland management, governance, rural development, and biodiversity surveys, about which he authored some 150 publications. He has been employed by Governmental- (Rwandan, Dutch), bilateral cooperation- (GIZ, DGIS), UN-, Non-Governmental- (IUCN, WWF) and private organizations, developing distinctive leadership, technical and administrative skills. Dr. Paul has been teaching at the Garoua and Kitabi wildlife colleges (Cameroon, Rwanda) and various universities across Africa and in Europe. Presently, he is visiting professor and chair-holder in Ecological Monitoring and Conflict Management at the postgraduate school ERAIFT-UNESCO (DRC). His interventions are based on first-hand knowledge of international cooperation- and financing mechanisms, and consensus building a.o. through membership of IUCN-SSC/CEM/WCPA, advisory councils and boards. Dr. Paul is a member of the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Think Tank, plays a big role in advising and liaising the think tank to international conservation organizations and donor communities.